BobChalmers

The top five players on most lists don't include Newton either. Everyone is just assuming Carolina will take Newton at 1 - that's not the same as him being a top-five player. Most of what I've heard is the other four are the "top four". Gabbert is listed higher than Newton on most lists. Quinn (who scares the hell out of me) and Prince Amukamara are in the next batch along with Julio Jones and Bowers.

Not even a little. The red helmets look idiotic - always have.

Peterson is arguably the single best player in the draft. I know we all want better run defense, but adding a monster shutdown corner of the sort that comes out only every few years is no crime. McKelvin isn't all there yet (ever?) and McGee just keeps getting older. I'd rather have Miller or Dareus too - just saying, people shouldn't freak out about Peterson (or AJ Green, for that matter) - he's a legit pick at that spot. As for Quinn - I think it would be freaking nuts to spend the #3 pick on a guy who didn't play at all last year, and didn't put up good numbers at the combine.

FAIL. The red helmets - a vain hope that Fergie would stop throwing picks if he could tell which guys were on our team.

NO, by my definition, Misi would not be a reach prior to #8 for ANOTHER team because #7 or higher is how high you'd have to go to get him. If the team that takes him at #8 is the only team that wants him in the first round, then THEY reached. It's ALL about what other teams are thinking - GIVEN that it's already a player you want. If you don't want the guy you don't take him. Right - and here's the absurdity - you think you CAN predict what a college player is going to do over an NFL career, even though about half the 1st round picks disappoint. But you think it's too hard to get a sense of what other teams think of a prospect enough to know WHEN the right time to pick him is. Personally, I think it would be easier to know the present (what other teams are thinking) then predict the future (how a player will actually turn out).

McCargo, Losman, and Troup were probably reaches. Whitner wasn't much of one - he was gone 5 picks later if the Bills didn't take him at #8. I hated the pick, btw - because I wanted Ngata. Being a bad pick doesn't make it a reach though. Maybin, McKelvin, Hardy, Evans - all of those guys went about where predicted by most sources. Disappointment or even total Bust does not equal reach.

Then he doesn't know the definition of "reach" and he's an idiot for using that term to describe Spiller - sorry. Nobody takes a player they don't think is good. Unless the Bills were the only team that liked him as a first round prospect, then he wasn't a reach. A reach is taking a player before you HAVE to. "HAVE TO" is defined precisely by what other people think. Taking Tom Brady anywhere before the Patriots took him in the sixth would have been a reach. It doesn't matter that in retrospect he would look good as a #1 overall. It would still be a mistake to take him before you have to in order to get him, because you could have filled other needs with high picks multiple times before still getting him in the fifth. A lot of people thought Spiller was a top pick. Nix believed he was a player he wanted. The only way he was a "reach" in the first is if you think no other team would take him before the Bills next chance. Given all the buzz he had, this seems unlikely - so unlikely that I call it a "no way". How much of a "reach" a player is is defined by how many picks "too soon" you took him - with the assumption sometimes that you might be able to trade down and still get them. Whitner was a slight reach - the Ravens had made it pretty clear they were looking at him at 13 - the Bills took him at 8. Five picks really isn't that big a reach - both teams saw him as the top safety. Calling Spiller a reach at #9 when many saw him as #1 is just stupid. That's the defintion of reach (and it's antonym, "value pick" aka BPA) in the "metagame" of the draft. If he doesn't get that, he doesn't know what he is doing.

"Bills continue the trend of “reaching” in first" Anyone who writes that based on last year (Nix's ONLY year as GM) is an ignorant fool not worthy of quoting except for amusement. Spiller was in no way, shape or form, a "reach". He was the exact opposite - regarded as possibly the best offensive player in the draft, but a luxury pick for the Bills who already had two good RB's. That's called taking a "value" pick, not a "reach".

This notion is out there among a lot of NFL scouts as well, I gather. Yes please - don't reach Bills - if there's not a great QB - hold off and get a stud somewhere else.

I may be putting too much into Mayock's evaluations - I generally find him the least stupid of the draftniks. BUT - Mayock thinks Locker is better than any of the prospects except Gabbert. I'm an FSU guy, but Ponder makes me nervous - though I should probably cut him some slack based on his lousy WR's last year and his bum elbow. He certainly was sharp for the Senior Bowl. He's a sharp kid, very mobile, usually very accurate, and as another thread has pointed out - had an insanely hot girlfriend, not that that should surprise anyone - he IS the QB from Florida State, after all. Mallett looks to me like an even less mobile Bledsoe w/o the decision making. I just don't see how a QB like that can play in today's NFL. Haven't paid enough attention to the others to judge.

Apparently the concept that "the best player" may change over time as rookies develop is too complex for you. Most people can grasp that rookies take a little time to catch up to veterans - even if the rookie has more talent and will be a better player in the near term (1-2 years). Rookie DL's in particular don't usually show up ready to play their first year - too much catching up to do in terms of strength and interior "combat" techniques. NT's are especially slow to develop. Troupe did fine for a rookie NT. At this point, there is no reason to believe Troupe can't be a very effective starting NT, which means unless Williams moves to DE, we already have two good players for the nose and would have no use for a Phil Taylor, for example. This coaching staff was also switching the whole defensive scheme to one which none of the veterans had been playing - and the players were new to the coaches - so it took time for the team coaches/management to evaulate all the players in the new scheme. They made the sensible decision to evaulate the previous starters first.

You have one part right - FAIL on this "instant evaluation" nonsense going on here. I do hope all the people here who are so damned sure last year's draft was a failure after one season are prepared to come back and admit their mistake in two years when and if Troupe and Spiller and Carrington, and Batten, etc. start having a big impact. Everyone everywhere knows you can't accurately judge a draft until at least 3 years later. There are several articles on that in the national media every year. Kiper, etc. go back and reevaluate their picks every season - again THREE YEARS LATER. The results very different from their first take. IF you have really good intel, you can judge a draft right away on whether picks were reaches/values - but it's very hard to get intel there you can trust. I'll give you that Troupe may have been a reach - since most boards had him further down the list of NT's - it looked like the Bills should have tried to trade down a bit to take him. (No matter what he becomes or how we feel about the luxury of the pick - Spiller could not possibly be called a reach - he was a big value pick even at #9. Argued by many to be the single best player in the entire draft.) P.S. You're going to see a LOT more out of Spiller this year. Last year he missed the start of camp then he sat around on the bench the first part of the season while they were showcasing Lynch for a trade. He wasn't ready to play by the time he finally got in there - fair enough - but he also wasn't put in the best position to develop. He's a good hard-working kid (I have that on 3rd hand personal observations - but I believe it and it matches what we see in interviews). Spiller knows he wasn't prepared enough and is determined to improve where he needs to. He's still crazy-talented - it will start to really show this year with more training and more touches.

I'd take Locker over Mallett any day.

Reed's announcing #34 from what I recall. I wouldn't read anything into that about position though. This front office has a history of 1 first-round fdraft pick, and they used it on a best-player-available, not a need, definitely not a reach. I don't have any expectation they will reach past the obvious players. They may well look beyond the "obvious" positions - and take Peterson or Green. There really isn't anything wrong with that, except that it might be more wasteful if they don't pan out as stars? When Chris Kelsay was drafted, Mel Kiper thought he was one of the major steals of the draft - a first-round talent the Bills got in the second round. As a 4-3 end, he was decent enough - no not a star you hope for but an OK starter. Big problem now is he has no position in the 3-4. Honestly, given the lack of LB talent in this draft, I still don't see how it makes sense for them to stick with a 3-4. If they go with Miller it makes more sense - and he would certainly confirm their committment to the 3-4.

Thank you. See Brian Brohm, if you want an example. He was the man as a Junior. As a senior, not so much. Stuff happens. Which, btw, says pretty loudly that Luck is a fool for not coming out this year. There's almost no way that works out for him. Both sides in the labor dispute think rookies are getting too much money.

Do you know what "intangibles" means?

Drafting the same positions every year is the surest way to make NO PROGRESS EVER. In your scenario, we will have our best defensive player (Kyle Williams) plus three of our four major acquisitions last season (the top FA add last year, Dwan Edwards, plus our #2 and #3 draft picks - Troupe and Carrington) fighting over only THREE SPOTS on the roster with our top two picks this year. That's right YOUR PLAN is for SIX PLAYERS - two top veterans and four draft picks in from rounds 1-3 that need to be starters FOR ONLY 3 SPOTS. Meanwhile no upgrade at LB, DB, TE, ORT... ??? awesome. Our DL was not the problem last year. Our LB's sucked out loud. We had guys like Kelsay and Maybin, and an injured Torbor at OLB, and couldn't contain the outside run. Maybe you wanted Wanny to run a 6-1 defense??? One dominant 3-4 DE - say Dareus - would be OK - but if you add him, Williams is now a full time DT, which means Troup is there in reserve, so where the heck is your "true NT" supposed to help?? Fortunately, Nix has already made it clear he doesn't agree with you, and has come out clearly saying months ago that the problem with the run defense was not the DL but was that the LB weren't good enough/too small.

There have been multiple comments about the risk of future draft picks and that the NFL is not gauranteeing anything about future years to the team on this thread - a casual look up the thread should find you several such posts easily. I agree that the idea of no draft would be seriously stupid for both sides of the negotiations though, and therefore extremely unlikely.

FIXED ENOUGH WITH THE DT's ALREADY. We have Williams and Troup. That's our 2 DT's for one position in the 3-4. DONE. If there was a beast ILB worth taking at #3 fine - but there isn't anyone close.

In fairness to their Maybin projection - they also said this about him: Which is, of course, the biggest difference between Maybin and most of the top candidates this year - with the possible exception of Quinn - who scares the heck out of me. Jauron was desperate to keep his job - and decided to gamble on the biggest potential upside player he could get. Nix has repeatedly stated and demonstrated his lack of enthusiasm for 1-year wonders, and I don't think there's anything Wilson could say to him that would make him act desperately to keep his job - Nix likes his job, and he's determined to do well for the Bills and the fans - but he doesn't need the job.

Exactly - as you are indicating - this is a bad thing for the Bills why??? But, as per usual, we see at least half the posters here somehow twisting the fact that Nix is keeping the media out of the loop into Nix himself is out of the loop. That's just the weird messed-up psychology of the Bills fanbase. Nothing new, of course.

EXACTLY - And Spiller wasn't a reach - he was the polar opposite of a reach - the BPA but not a need. Somehow though the OP has twisted that into an argument that Nix will this year reach for the "wrong" need player, but there is, in fact, no evidence at all to support the argument.

I'm another FSU alum and fan and I'd be luke-warm on Ponder in the 2nd. As a 3rd round pick or later in the 2nd than our pick if they make a trade would be OK. I liked him as a college QB but I'm not really sold on him as an NFL prospect. He really seemed to struggle under pressure - maybe it was his injuries - but his decisions seemed like a mixed bag too. Very true - that was probably the worst collective WR performance I've seen at FSU in my 30 years watching them. Tons of stupid drops and missed routes. Definitely had to affect Ponder's stat line.

You are totally confusing two completely different things - drafting "sleepers" in the first round is another word for REACH, and it's generally pretty dumb for a first-round pick. Yes, the PRIOR Bills regimes were doing too much of that. Spiller was NOT a reach or a sleeper - he was arguably the best player availaible in the whole draft (going in). He wasn't a "need" pick - he was a BPA pick. "Need" picks are the ones that often turn out to be reaches and sleepers. There is no real logic to associate what Nix and Gailey did last year with "sleepers". As you point out, Green, or I'd add Peterson, would be the most similar. I'm probably less worried about this year than most, simply because there are probably 9 perfectly reasonable choices - some clear needs, some mroe BPA-types, and 2 QB's which is kind of its own category. I prefer some to others but not nearly enough to say I'm sure I'm right and Nix will be wrong to prefer one of Fairley/Dareus, or Bowers/Quinn, or Newton/Gabbert. I also don't have a real strong feeling either way - even having seen the combines, reviews, etc. about Miller, Peterson, and Green. There's nine perfectly reasonable picks, and I don't think anyone on this board REALLY knows which is the best or worst on the list. I suppose if the Bills left that list of 9 I would be bothered - how likely is that really? Certainly the Spiller pick is not evidence for them doing so - he was everyone's clear #1 choice at the position.

Don't forget Roscoe - who was lighting it up before he got hurt!